Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

Been a long time since an update, I had the pleasure to teach an Introduction to 2D Design studio class this spring. Developing a curriculum based on my pedagogical studies at Arizona State University was extremely time-consuming. However, the 2/3 of the students that stuck through the 10 week course really made incredible advancements both in their craft skills as well as their basic appreciation and understanding of design elements and principles. I was really blown away with some of their work by the end.

At one point in the quarter, we tackled the element of color with watercolors. I feel watercolor is far more forgiving and flexible than acrylic, though you have to think about how colors mix in a very different way. Anyhow, the students did surprisingly well even with my modest personal knowledge of the medium.

Inspired by my students’ experience, as well as needing to provide some work for a show in Helena MT (Horsing Around, curated by Marco Rosichelli), I created a three piece series, Western Pleasure. It is dedicated to all the middle-aged, single women that have chosen to devote their free time and love to horses.

Western Pleasure

The premise of Marco’s show Horsing Around is a response to all the horse art he has encountered in range country. He invited pieces that were playful but NOT the standard western/country/horse art that is prevalent throughout western US galleries.

My pieces refer to a style of riding competition. From equiworld.net: “The western pleasure horse must, above all, look like it is a pleasure to ride.”

Via Americans for the Arts, I drafted a letter to my Senators Cantwell and Murray, as well as to my Congressman Doc Hastings. Thought I’d share it here, and hopefully inspire some others out there to write in (just head on over to Americans for the Arts and fill out your own! ). I italicized the text that was generated by the form.What Congressman Doc Hastings has never said, but is no doubt thinking.
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As a constituent, I hope you will vote against any amendments further cutting the funding for the National Endowment for the Arts during consideration of the FY2011 appropriations package.

Though I agree with Congressman Hastings about the government being far too bloated, completely eliminating any support for the arts is a terrifying prospect.

The grandest cultures that are remembered by history are the ones who funded artists and craftsmen, commissioning and supporting their works. On the other side of the coin, some of the more terrifying cultures of recent centuries suppressed and twisted art to further their own dark philosophies.

Keeping art alive and uncensored in the United States is important. Though many artworks can be bizarre, many of them might become important future classics that will inform and inspire our populace.

We artists don’t need much to live on. We are not wasteful, and most of us live in a non-profit world. The successful among us end up generating wealth for investors and business-owners, and little for ourselves.

As you consider what programs necessarily need trimming or elimination, I hope you go easy on the NEA and the arts. The tiny percentage of federal dollars spent goes a long way in the hands of artists and their patrons, a lot farther than it seems to go with medical care or war.

Thank you!

Some blurbs from Americans for the Arts:

The nonprofit arts industry generates $166.2 billion annually in economic activity, supports 5.7 million full-time equivalent jobs in the arts and related industries, and returns $12.6 billion in federal income taxes. Measured against direct federal cultural spending of about $1.4 billion, that’s a return of nearly nine to one.

Federal funding for the arts leverages private funding. The NEA requires at least a one-to-one match of federal funds from all grant recipients—a match far exceeded by most grantees. On average, each NEA grant leverages at least seven dollars from other state, local, and private sources. Private support cannot match the leveraging role of government cultural funding.

I had to compete with the high school’s football field completion being delayed and a demonstration from abuse survivors in front of a Carmelite regional office. I’m very flattered, thank you Weekly Doings!

The large doodles (I’d hesitate to call them much more than that) will be up for another month or so at least, though the panels may be moving throughout the library as the remodeling continues. Check ‘em out at Indian Prairie Public Library if you’re in Darien, IL!

What makes a monster? Does a monster have to have sharp teeth and multiple eyes? Can a monster’s sole evil exist in its ability to cheat people out of their life’s savings or, to use military force to bully or even kill them? Is a litterbug a monster?

Children draw monsters based on their own sets of fears and beliefs which may or may not wane as they grow older. Culture, science and religion have created and supported various definitions over the centuries. Hollywood has packaged, presented and championed all the cliche and kitsch manifestations and, a new intrusive media machine with ever shrinking boundaries gives a frightening view of the everyday monster next door, capable of inconceivable horror. All this being said, is it possible for “good” monsters to exist, say a monster who opposes and battles more evil monsters (i.e. a “dirty” cop?)